"Clown With Straight Horn — Mountain of Ironies," by Laura Lima (2007), is part of the Phoenix Art Museum's "Past/Future/Present" exhibition of works on loan from Sao Paulo, Brazil.(Photo: Kerry Lengel/The Republic)

If your fear of creepy clowns is keeping you away from Stephen King’s “It” at the moviehouse, you might find yourself scurrying past a certain sculpture at the Phoenix Art Museum’s big new Brazilian art show.

“Past/Future/Present: Contemporary Brazilian Art from the Museum of Modern Art, São Paulo” opened this month and runs through the end of the year. It’s an eclectic mix of mediums, including photography and video pieces, mostly from the past three decades.

For the curators, the central question of the show is what makes Brazilian art “Brazilian” in a globalized, postmodern context — but I’ll be honest: If you aren’t intimately familiar with Brazilian culture, you might not be able to come to any conclusions about that on your own.

And yet, this impressive spectrum of work still has plenty of intrigue. Here are five pieces I couldn’t stop looking at.

The creepy clown

“Clown With Straight Horn — Mountain of Ironies,” Laura Lima (2007)

Sprawled against the wall is a corpselike clown with a multicolored Rorschach test painted on his papier-mache head. The body is grotesquely elongated and deflated … and if you spend enough time looking at the thing, there is a surprise in store. It’s designed to give certain people nightmares. What does this evoke in a Brazilian context? I have no idea — I’ve never been to Carnival — but it had me thinking about the “uncanny valley,” that theorized zone between cartoonish and photorealistic that creeps people out because it’s both too real and not real enough.

Detail from "50 Hours: Stolen Self-Portrait," by Rochelle Costi (1992/93), on display in the Phoenix Art Museum's "Past/Future/Present" exhibition of works on loan from Sao Paulo, Brazil.(Photo: Kerry Lengel/The Republic)

The nude collage

“50 Hours: Stolen Self-Portrait,” Rochelle Costi (1992/93)

The artist spent days lying on her side as a nude model for a painting class, and during breaks she photographed herself as well as the images the student artists were making of her. The result is a stunning, mural-size collage that’s a sly commentary on the feminist critique of “the male gaze,” with the artist usurping the role of observer of herself. It also becomes an exuberant celebration of the female form and offers an intriguing look at how different painters re-envision that reality.

"Note on a Lit Scene or the Ten Thousand Pencils," by José Damasceno (2000), in the "Past/Future/Present" exhibit at the Phoenix Art Museum.(Photo: Kerry Lengel/The Republic)

The pencil silhouette

“Note on a Lit Scene or the Ten Thousand Pencils,” José Damasceno (2000)

A vast swath of white space is taken up with an image of a human figure looking at a painting (or out a window?), created by thousands of yellow pencils stuck in the wall. It’s a reverse silhouette, the two objects in vivid white surrounded by a thicket of wood like so many porcupine spines, and up close the image dissolves into the array of pencils. In the exhibition catalog, the artist poses this question as central to his work, and answers it: “Is the body the home? The spirit is the body. The home is the spirit.”

"Inmensa," by Cildo Meireles (1982), is part of the "Past/Future/Present" exhibit at the Phoenix Art Museum.(Photo: Kerry Lengel/The Republic)

The Escher furniture

“Inmensa,” Cildo Meireles (1982)

One subsection of the show is dubbed “Impossible Objects,” among them this wood sculpture of a table resting on miniature versions of itself. The title is Latin for “on the table.” It’s not quite an Escher illusion, but it has the same surreal feel. Very “Alice in Wonderland.” From the catalog: “The relationship with rational physics is ironic and serves to illustrate how smaller, more fragile entities provide support for the larger pieces — as in society itself.” I’ll admit this political subtext eluded me, but there’s a lot more social commentary in the exhibit that’s a lot harder to miss.

From a single spot, the hanging photos in "A Perspective" (Cássio Vasconcellos, 2002) resolve into a single image. Part of the "Past/Future/Present" exhibit at the Phoenix Art Museum.(Photo: Kerry Lengel/The Republic)

The deconstructed/reconstructed cityscape

“A Perspective,” Cássio Vasconcellos (2002)

The largest installation is a jumble of black-and-white photographs of urban images — buildings and overpasses — hanging in a three-dimensional array. But if you look at them from just the right spot (conveniently marked with a large metal eye hole on a pedestal), they resolve into a single cityscape. It’s a clear metaphor for how we all live in the world, unable to see the forest for the trees, so to speak. But it’s also a triumph of mathematical engineering, since the photos have to be sized and placed just so to create the effect. It’s fantastic.

This place isn't your traditional art museum, but that's what makes it so unique. Located on a twenty-one acre, landscaped park, the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art has the best of contemporary art, architecture and design. There are nine to twelve rotating exhibitions per year. Details: Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday noon - 5 p.m. Thursday through Saturday noon - 9 p.m. Closed Mondays and major holidays. 7374 East Second Street, Scottsdale. $10 for adults, $7 for students, free to SMOCA members, people 15 and under. Free admission Thursdays and after 5 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. smoca.org
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The Shemer Art Center has been around since October 1984. According to the website, "(Martha) Shemer had two dreams: one to preserve a bit of Phoenix history and another to give back; she wanted to provide to the citizens of Phoenix a community center." Details: Tuesday- Saturday 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. Sunday, Monday closed. 5005 East Camelback Road, Phoenix. Free, with a suggested donation of $7 per person or $10 per couple. shemerartcenter.org
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Western Spirit: Scottsdale’s Museum of the West has authentic and participatory exhibitions that show Western art and culture. Details: Hours vary depending on the season. Closed Monday. 3830 N. Marshall Way, Scottsdale. $13 for adults, $11 for seniors (65+) and active military members. $8 for students full-time with ID and children ages 6-17. Free for members and children 5 and younger. Additional free admission available. scottsdalemuseumwest.org
Jennifer Conway

If you're looking for variety, the Phoenix Art Museum has it, as the largest art museum in the southwestern United States. Exhibitions are placed with the museum’s collection of more than 18,000 objects of American, Asian, European, Latin American, Western American, modern and contemporary art, including photography and fashion design. Details: Tuesdsay, Thursday, Friday and Saturday 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Wednesday 10 a.m. - 9 p.m. Sunday noon - 5 p.m. Closed Mondays. 1625 N. Central Ave., Phoenix. $18 for adults. $15 for seniors (65+). $13 for students with ID. $9 for children 6-17. Free for children ages 5 and under, museum members and military members with ID. phxart.org.
Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix Art Museum

2. Mesa Arts Center. The Mesa Arts Center operated from 1980 to 2005 inside a school three blocks north of the center's current location. Construction of new center was completed in 2005 and all existing programs and staff moved to the current location. | FIND IT: One East Main Street, Mesa.
Mesa Arts Center